Birthdays Today: July 22

Sixty-six living people we could verify share today's birthday, from Selena Gomez and funk godfather George Clinton, turning 85, to Lethal Weapon's Danny Glover, who turns 80 just weeks after revealing his Alzheimer's diagnosis, plus a remarkable 1946 cohort of four notables all turning 80 on this exact day.

The headliners

Selena Gomez turns 34 today, and few public figures straddle music, screen, and business the way she does. She is the most-followed woman on Instagram and the star and producer of Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. She broke out as Alex Russo on Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, reached a US number one with "Lose You to Love Me" in 2020, and last year married the producer Benny Blanco and released the album I Said I Love You First with him. The genuinely surprising part: she was named after Tejano superstar Selena Quintanilla, the singer her parents admired, three years before Quintanilla was murdered. Her cosmetics company, Rare Beauty, was valued at $2 billion, and its Rare Impact Fund channels a share of sales to mental-health services, a cause she has spoken about openly since her own lupus and bipolar diagnoses.

Willem Dafoe turns 71 today, and his face may be the most chameleon-like in modern American film. He has four Academy Award nominations, for Platoon), Shadow of the Vampire, The Florida Project, and At Eternity's Gate, in which he played Vincent van Gogh. A generation knows him as Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man) trilogy, and he slipped back into the role for Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021. The surprising part: long before Hollywood, Dafoe co-founded the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group in 1975, and he has stayed a member for five decades while building one of the most prolific film careers of any living actor. Born in Appleton, Wisconsin, he picked up the Dutch nickname "Willem" in high school and kept it. He recently appeared in Robert Eggers' Nosferatu).

George Clinton) turns 85 today, the oldest headliner of the day and the godfather of funk. With his Parliament-Funkadelic collective he shaped the sound of 1970s Black music, with more than 40 R&B hit singles and three platinum albums, and then seeded 1990s hip-hop and G-funk through samples that still circle the culture. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him and 15 bandmates in 1997, and Parliament-Funkadelic received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. The genuinely surprising part: before the spaceships and the rainbow wigs, Clinton was a barber. He ran a shop in Plainfield, New Jersey, staffed by future P-Funk members, and formed his first doo-wop group, the Parliaments, while straightening hair there. He ranks, with James Brown and Sly Stone, as one of the three foremost innovators of funk.

Danny Glover turns 80 today, and on July 1 he gave the world a reason to mark the birthday with more than cake. The star of the Lethal Weapon) franchise revealed on NBC's Today and to People magazine that he has been living with Alzheimer's disease, diagnosed a few years ago, and is now working with the Alzheimer's Association to raise awareness (AP, Variety). He told Lester Holt, "I can live with it, in a sense." He is Roger Murtaugh to a global audience, but his range runs from The Color Purple) and Witness to To Sleep with Anger and an honorary Oscar in 2022. The surprising part: Glover had epilepsy as a young man and has not had a seizure since age 35. His parents were postal workers and NAACP organizers, and his activism, from TransAfrica to UNICEF, has run as long as his filmography.

Prince George of Wales turns 13 today, and he is second in line to the British throne, behind his father, William, Prince of Wales. He was born at 4:24 pm on July 22, 2013 at St Mary's Hospital in London, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, and his birth was celebrated across the Commonwealth as the arrival of a future king. For the first time since Queen Victoria, three generations in direct line to the throne were alive at once. The genuinely surprising part: when George, then nine months old, joined his parents on a 2014 tour of Australia and New Zealand, Australian media dubbed him "the republican slayer" after polls showed the lowest support for an Australian republic in 35 years. He has a younger sister, Princess Charlotte, and brother, Prince Louis.

S.E. Hinton turns 78 today, and she more or less invented the young-adult novel. She wrote The Outsiders) while still a 16-year-old high school student in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it was published in 1967, when she was 18. The book has sold more than 14 million copies and, by her publisher's count, still moves over 500,000 a year. The genuinely surprising part: her publisher told her to use her initials, S.E., instead of Susan Eloise, so that the first male reviewers would not dismiss a book about rival teen gangs because its author was a girl. She kept the initials for her whole career. In 1988 she received the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution to writing for teens. Her cousin-in-law was the late US Senator Jim Inhofe.

Before the roll call

One coincidence worth pausing on: four notable people were born on this exact day in 1946, all turning 80 today, across four fields. Danny Glover is one of them, and he is joined by Taxi Driver screenwriter and First Reformed director Paul Schrader, French chanson star Mireille Mathieu (122 million records sold), and former Palau president Johnson Toribiong. The date keeps delivering in clusters. A 1947 trio all turn 79 today: Eagles drummer Don Henley, actor-comedian Albert Brooks, and former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe. A 1964 trio all turn 62: John Leguizamo, David Spade, and Doctor Who's Bonnie Langford. And a 1998 quintet all turn 28: Real Madrid teammates Federico Valverde and Marc Cucurella, actress Madison Pettis, YouTuber Larray, and Thai actor Sahaphap Wongratch.

Also celebrating today

Music. Don Henley (Eagles singer-drummer, "Hotel California"), turning 79. Mireille Mathieu (French chanson singer, 122 million records), turning 80. Alan Menken (Disney composer, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin), turning 77. Al Di Meola (jazz fusion guitarist, Return to Forever), turning 72. Keith Sweat (R&B singer, new jack swing pioneer), turning 65. Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls singer-songwriter), turning 63. Despina Vandi (Greek pop singer), turning 57. Jason Becker (guitarist who kept composing after an ALS diagnosis), turning 56. Rufus Wainwright (singer-songwriter), turning 53. Daniel Jones) (Savage Garden guitarist), turning 53. Kate Ryan (Belgian singer, "Désenchantée"), turning 46. Armaan Malik (Indian playback singer), turning 31.

Screen. Albert Brooks (actor-comedian, Broadcast News, Drive), turning 79. Lonette McKee (actress, Sparkle, Jungle Fever), turning 72. David Spade (SNL alum, Tommy Boy), turning 62. John Leguizamo (actor, Ice Age, Romeo + Juliet), turning 62. Bonnie Langford (Doctor Who, EastEnders), turning 62. Rhys Ifans (Welsh actor, Notting Hill), turning 59. Irene Bedard (actress, voice of Pocahontas), turning 59. Franka Potente (Run Lola Run, The Bourne Identity), turning 52. A.J. Cook (Criminal Minds), turning 48. Jaime Camil (Mexican actor, Jane the Virgin), turning 53. Colin Ferguson) (actor, Eureka), turning 54. Keegan Allen (Pretty Little Liars), turning 37. Skyler Gisondo (Booksmart, The Social Dilemma), turning 30. Madison Pettis (actress, Cory in the House), turning 28. Javon Walton (Euphoria, Ashtray), turning 20.

Sports. Sparky Lyle (Yankees relief pitcher, 1977 Cy Young winner), turning 82. René Vandereycken (Belgian footballer and national-team coach), turning 73. Lasse Virén (Finnish runner, four Olympic golds), turning 77. Alvin Robertson (NBA guard, career steals-per-game record), turning 64. Kristine Lilly (US soccer, most-capped player in history), turning 55. Keyshawn Johnson (NFL wide receiver, Super Bowl XXXVII), turning 54. Sergei Zubov (NHL defenseman, two Stanley Cups), turning 56. Dirk Kuyt (Dutch footballer, Liverpool and Feyenoord), turning 46. Scott Dixon (IndyCar driver, six-time champion), turning 46. Charlotte Kalla (Swedish cross-country skier, three Olympic golds), turning 39. Israel Adesanya (UFC fighter, two-time middleweight champion), turning 37. Taylor Lewan (NFL offensive tackle, Titans), turning 35. Ezekiel Elliott (NFL running back, Cowboys), turning 31. Jonathan Owens (NFL safety, married Simone Biles), turning 31. Kevin Fiala (NHL winger, Swiss), turning 30. Federico Valverde (Real Madrid and Uruguay midfielder), turning 28. Marc Cucurella (Real Madrid and Spain left-back, Euro 2024 winner), turning 28. Jason Robertson (NHL winger, Dallas Stars), turning 27. Garrett Wilson) (NFL wide receiver, Jets), turning 26. Shawn Michaels (WWE Hall of Famer, "The Heartbreak Kid"), turning 61.

World, politics and public life. Kay Bailey Hutchison (former US Senator from Texas, ex-US ambassador to NATO), turning 83. Anand Satyanand (former Governor-General of New Zealand), turning 82. Johnson Toribiong (former President of Palau), turning 80. Gilles Duceppe (former leader of the Bloc Québécois), turning 79. Patriarch Daniel (Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church), turning 75. Devendra Fadnavis (Chief Minister of Maharashtra), turning 56. Andrew Holness (Prime Minister of Jamaica), turning 54. Robert Aderholt (US Congressman, Alabama), turning 61.

Filmmakers, business and media. Paul Schrader (writer-director, Taxi Driver, First Reformed), turning 80. Barbara Cassani (founder of Go Fly airline, led London's 2012 Olympic bid), turning 66. Sahaphap Wongratch (Thai actor, My Ambulance), turning 28. Larray (YouTuber and singer), turning 28. Prince Felix of Denmark (younger son of Prince Joachim of Denmark), turning 24.

Happy birthday to all of them, and to anyone else blowing out candles today.